Are Diversity Statements Illegal?

By Adrienne Lu May 31, 2023 1 min read

By Adrienne Lu
Chronicle of Higher Education


Excerpt: As a growing number of colleges around the country have stopped using diversity statements, a lawsuit filed against the University of California system in May appears to be the first to directly challenge their legality. Experts are divided on whether the use of such statements by public colleges will pass legal muster.

Keith E. Whittington, a professor of politics at Princeton University, said that diversity statements, as they are commonly used in academe, “definitely run afoul of these kinds of viewpoint discrimination concerns.”

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